A Dumb War Makes Trumpworld Dumber

A plume of smoke rises from an oil storage facility hit by a US-Israeli strike on Saturday in Tehran. Vahid Salemi/AP

War is an extreme action and, thus, triggers extreme reactions. Including extreme stupidity. It’s always disheartening—or ought to be—to see what should be a last resort comes to pass. It’s worse when a war is accompanied by cruelty, callousness, recklessness, and idiocy, though for obvious reasons that might be unavoidable. As for Trump’s war in Iran—which could well be an immense blunder—it has been enveloped in layers of excessive dumbness.

I’m not talking about the strategic wisdom—or lack thereof—of this attack, which could precipitate calamities throughout the region and beyond. Or the madness of impulsively launching such a war without planning for what comes afterward. I’m referring to how it has prompted imbecility among its supporters, including at the White House.

At 1600 Pennsylvania, the belief seems to be that war is the continuation of trolling by other means. First, the White House released a video intercutting scenes of bomb strikes with video game footage. (Look how fun it is to slaughter people!) Then it posted a video featuring movie clips to hype the awesomeness of this war—a military action that opened with a strike, probably American in origin, on a girls’ elementary school that massacred scores of students.

This White House video moves quickly from Iron Man 2 to Gladiator to Braveheart to Top Gun to Better Call Saul to John Wick to Breaking Bad to other fare, including Tropic Thunder, Superman, and Transformers, and ends with a sound clip from the Mortal Kombat video games declaring, “Flawless victory.” Then a fade to the White House emblem. In the middle of all this, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth intones, “F.A.”—as in “fuck around, find out.”

It’s juvenile and demonstrates a lack of somberness about the nasty and brutal business of war. Kudos to Ben Stiller, who directed, co-wrote, and starred in Tropic Thunder, for demanding the White House remove the clip from his film: “We never gave you permission and have no interest in being part of your propaganda machine. War is not a movie.” Or a video game.

The video is also pretty dumb. Several of the characters featured, such as Saul Goodman and Walter White of Breaking Bad, are ethically challenged criminals, not the types you want to hail as role models or heroes. Russell Crowe (Gladiator) and Mel Gibson (Braveheart) are from New Zealand and Australia, respectively, and each play a rebel who opposes an invasionary and imperial force. That’s not quite the current storyline.

Making light of warfare that’s killing hundreds, perhaps thousands, and creating potential environmental and health disasters and perhaps a humanitarian crisis shows an utter disregard for human life and dignity. But, hell, pop open a Red Bull and let’s have a ball. There’s no better way to convince the public this war is being run by adults who care about the sanctity of life, respect the Iranian people, and went to war only because there was absolutely no other choice.

We also saw what might be called war frivolity at the Free Press, where Nellie Bowles, who created the site with spouse Bari Weiss, found lots of fun in the latest war news, joshing that Trump will pick Iran’s new leader “via swimsuit competition,” celebrating the torpedoing of a ship (“Welcome back to water warfare, baby!”), and joking that it was a good thing a downed American pilot “didn’t land in Minneapolis.”

Curtis Yarvin, a self-proclaimed political theorist of the far right who denigrates democracy and celebrates monarchy, got into the act. He blamed the United States’ problem with Iran on the American left, tweeting, “The Iranian Revolution was a diplomatic crime of the American left. The Islamic Republic, like its proxy Hamas, is a client power of the American left. Trump is only bombing Tehran because he can’t bomb Brooklyn.”

There is so much inanity in those three sentences.

The Islamic Revolution was a product of 26 years of repressive rule from the Shah, who was installed by the United States after Washington and London orchestrated the coup that overthrew Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadegh, a democratically elected leader who dared to nationalize the British-controlled oil industry. Moreover, the fundamentalists of Tehran have more in common with anti-woke Trumpists than they do with NPR listeners in Park Slope. (Ask them about queer people, abortion, and secular relativism.) And it’s swell of Yarvin to suggest that fellow Americans deserve to be bombed.

Such nonsense from him is not surprising. After all, he has called for liquidating democracy, the Constitution, and the rule of law and handing power to a CEO-ish leader who would turn the US government into “a heavily-armed, ultra-profitable corporation.” Sounds like a nutball, right? Yet he’s pals with JD Vance and Peter Thiel. So be afraid.

For outright ignorance, we have Rep. Rick Crawford (R-Ark.). On Fox News, he proclaimed, “We have been at war with Iran since 1947.”

Nope. As noted above, from 1953 to 1979, Washington was pals with the Shah, helping him run his authoritarian regime. And here’s the kicker: Crawford is the chair of the House intelligence committee. Ponder that.

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) probably knows the United States has not been at war with Iran for 79 years. But he sure doesn’t know how to talk to a skeptical public about Trump’s war. One recent poll found that only 36 percent of Americans approve of Trump’s actions in Iran and that a majority believes Iran poses a minor threat or no threat to the United States.

Yet with public sentiment tilted against this war, Graham believes it’s fine to turn up the warmongering dial to 11. On Fox News—of course—he bellowed, “We're going to blow the hell out of these people."

Performances like that are sure to settle the nerves of worried Americans. Even Republican pundit Meghan McCain saw how counterproductive such rhetoric can be for the fans of this war. She tweeted, “I’ve known Lindsey Graham since I was a child. I am imploring anyone who will listen in the Trump administration to stop sending this man out as a surrogate. He is scaring people and doing damage to whatever message you’re trying to sell to the American public about the Iran war.”

Daniel Pipes, a longtime Islamophobic foreign policy analyst, expressed his disappointment and surprise that the Iranian people last week did not mount a revolution against the regime. “The populace now appears cowed into near-silence.”

When bombs are raining down, many people might prefer to seek shelter and protect their families rather than hit the streets in protest. Also, given Trump’s erratic signals—first he suggested the US would support an uprising, then his team drew back from that—Iranians opposed to the regime might be a tad reluctant to move on the government, while the 200,000-member Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps is still intact. Perhaps they can apologize to Pipes for letting him down.

The biggest dunderhead move, though, was Trump’s. As the war raged, with reports of new American casualties and US embassies in the region being ordered to evacuate, Trump this weekend showed the nation and the world that he was on top of things by...golfing. Nothing says you’re serious about protecting the troops and ending a war as soon as possible as zipping about in a golf cart at Trump National Doral in Miami and then signing autographs in the clubhouse. (Look, a buffet!)

You might think that a demagogue keen on imagery and PR stunts would realize the value in creating the impression that he’s a committed and engaged commander in chief during wartime—even if he was only faking that—by spending the day in the Situation Room with military brass or in the Oval Office on the phone talking to world leaders about the various crises being triggered by his war. Instead, he’s devoting hours to swinging a stick at a tiny ball.

Didn’t any of Trump’s brilliant advisers suggest that for just this weekend he skip the links? This decision demonstrated tremendous lack of judgment. It suggested Trump views himself as an emperor who can do whatever he pleases and need not worry about consequences. Anyone who pulls such a dumb move cannot be trusted to run a war—or a country.

Got anything to say about this item—or anything else? Email me at ourland.corn@gmail.com.

The right has always been infected by virulent racism. My book American Psychosis: A Historical Investigation of How the Republican Party Went Crazy covered that. But for much of this century, conservatives thought it was best if they cloaked their racism within euphemisms and relied on dog whistles, eschewing bullhorns. Trump changed all that. He rose as a right-wing champion by advocating the already discredited racist theory that Barack Obama, the first Black president, was not born in the United States and thus was not a legitimate chief executive. Trump made racism cool again for the right. And for the past decade, he has led conservatives and his MAGA movement into their promised land of overt racism. So we now have this:

They can now say they want the United States to be a homeland for white people. How liberated they must feel.

The Secret Agent. I can understand why the powers that be promoted Kleber Mendonça Filho’s The Secret Agent as a political thriller. But if you come to it expecting the conventions of that genre, you might be disappointed—but still entranced. This is not a plot-driven film, as most thrillers are. It doesn’t depend upon didn’t-see-that-coming twists, tables being turned, and the impressive wiles of a protagonist. The Secret Agent is a vibe film. It captures the day-to-day anxiety and routine suspense of living in a repressive regime. In this case, the Brazilian military dictatorship, which was imposed in 1964 when the Brazilian armed forces mounted a coup, with US support, against President João Goulart.

The year is 1977, and Armando Solimões is on the run. He’s a former professor and a widower, and it seems someone is after him. But that’s not explained at first. He heads toward Recife, a city on the northeast coast, where his in-laws are taking care of his young son and where a resistance network is sheltering dissidents and others who might be in trouble with the regime. He takes on a new identity and is given a job in an office that issues identity cards. In this position, he can search the records for information about his late mother of whom he knows little.

The resistance network is trying to find a way out of Brazil for Armando and his son, who is obsessed by the movie Jaws. But a corrupt government official has dispatched a pair of goons to dispose of Armando. When the reason for this is revealed, it’s a surprise, for it’s not overtly political. Nevertheless, the threat is real, and the point is made that in an authoritarian regime, there’s no rule of law and corruption is unchecked. Anyone and everyone is at risk.

The narrative proceeds slowly. But what’s gripping is the portrayal of life for Armando and his fellow internal refugees, who live in an apartment complex, under the watchful eye of Dona Sebastiana, an elderly radical. A heavy silence rests on each one, as life—and Carnival—continues around them.

The movie is shot in the highly saturated colors of Panavision. It looks and feels like 1977. There are loads of intriguing supporting characters, including a Holocaust survivor and a crooked police chief who takes a liking to Armando. There’s a touch of absurdism, with the local newspaper pushing the story about an autonomous hairy leg attacking gay men in cruising spots. (I assume this was a metaphor for government assaults on the LGBTQ community.) And Wagner Moura, with his soulful eyes, exquisitely conveys the quiet sadness of Armando, whose personal losses—he once led a successful research team at a university before it was disbanded for corrupt reasons and was happily married with a child—reflect those of an entire nation. He deserves the Best Actor nomination he garnered. But be warned: The Secret Agent, which is vying for Best Picture, is not a thriller as much as it’s a masterfully executed requiem.

Aterciopelados. Last week, I was on the train from Washington, DC, to New York. As I settled into my seat, I noticed a large group of Spanish-speaking people of varying ages who all shared a boho look. A few were toting guitars; others were carrying other gear. One of them, an unshaven 30-ish fellow in shades and wearing a bucket hat, sat down next to me, popped open his laptop, and started looking at a spreadsheet that listed musical equipment, such as amps and mixers. He played a few sound clips through the laptop’s speaker (not earbuds!), and, as he typed, he extended his arm across that invisible border between our seats, rubbing against my elbow and—how dare he!—violating my space. Not a good seat partner to have, I thought. Could be a long ride.

“You guys in a band?” I asked. “Yes,” he said and told me it was a musical act from Colombia called Aterciopelados. He described its music as a blend of traditional Colombian music and rock. He was the production manager for the group, and it was on tour in the United States to celebrate its 30th anniversary. “They’re pretty big,” he noted. “They’ve won Grammys.” I promised to give Aterciopelados—which is Spanish for “velvety ones”—a listen.

Later on, I did and was impressed. I was also impressed by the story of the band. It was formed by Andrea Echeverri and Héctor Buitrago in Bogota in the 1990s. She was an art-school graduate and ceramicist, and he had been in the hardcore punk scene. Their first album was punkish with distorted guitars. Then they moved to incorporate the sounds of traditional music and had a big break with “Bolero Falaz” (False Bolero), which made them a hit on MTV Latin America. (Years later, it would be cited as No. 1 on a list of the 1,000 most important Colombian rock songs.) They went on to work with Phil Manzanera, the guitarist for Roxy Music, and Marc Ribot, an eclectic American guitarist who has collaborated with Tom Waits and Elvis Costello, and they bagged four Latin Grammy Awards.

The band has taken fierce political stances, advocating for human rights and for clean water rights. When Colombia was considering a constitutional referendum to declare access to clean water a fundamental right for its citizens, Aterciopelados released an album with songs in sync with the cause, and the band traveled the Bogota River to collect signatures for the referendum. It also has worked with Amnesty International and been involved with the movement to counter the forced displacement of native people. In 2001, Time included Aterciopelados on its list of top global bands outside the United States, along with U2 and the Rolling Stones. That’s some company. And still, for the trip from DC to Boston, they had to take the regular Amtrak train. When I listened to Aterciopelados, I was glad that fellow had sat next to me.